Devices such as personal computers, handheld devices including wireless mobile devices (cellular phones, PDAs, etc.) among others, typically have a display device (i.e. a display screen) for presenting information content to users. Content may be part of a UI for an application or the operating system for the device, for example, and may include information displayed in a tabular form. Spreadsheets are one example of tabular information where information is displayed in rows and columns of a table.
The size of the screen (i.e. the overall screen dimensions at a particular resolution) often limits the amount of information that may be viewed at any one time. That is, additional rows and/or columns cannot be viewed without scrolling to bring the additional information into view on the screen. Often, it is difficult for a user to relate information in columns to the right with information in columns to the left (or vice versa) when the table to be displayed is larger than the screen since these columns may not be viewed at once. Scrolling back and forth may be confusing and provide an unsatisfactory comparison. A similar result occurs when there are too many rows to be displayed at once.
Some UIs for displaying tables of information provide options to a user to selectively “hide” or “unhide” particular columns (or rows) to turn on or off the display of such information. However, turning off the display of some of the columns (rows) in the table may not be sufficient to ensure that the information of interest is always displayed on the screen when scrolling among the columns and rows.
Other user options allow the freezing of a user sizable upper pane and/or leftmost pane. In this way, column or row labels may remain visible during scrolling. A user may select an upper pane of the first one or few adjacent rows of the table or a leftmost pane of the first one or a few adjacent columns to freeze. Respectively, a top horizontal pane is frozen to show column headings or a left vertical pane is frozen to show row headings while scrolling. In some interfaces an upper and left pane may be both frozen to show both column and row headings. Freezing ensures that at least a portion of the applicable rows and/or columns are displayed while scrolling and scrolling to show other rows or columns will not displace the frozen panes. However, information of interest in columns (rows) of interest that are not adjacent but are separated by intervening columns (rows) may not be frozen to appear simultaneously on the screen while scrolling.
As well, UI tables may appear in other documents for selectively displaying in the UI such as when scrolling through the document. When scrolling to or within such tables, it is desirable to be able to view table heading information to assist with an understanding of the tabular information.
A solution that addresses one or more of these issues is therefore desired.